Pakistani Students as Sojourners in China: Navigating Adaptation Challenges and Coping Strategies
Keywords:
Cultural adaptation, International students support, Cultural adjustment, GB students as sojourners, China-PakistanAbstract
Annually, thousands of Pakistani students move to China to pursue higher education at Chinese universities. Despite the plethora of academic literature on China-Pakistan relations, it remains to examine what challenges these new entrants face in their process of cross-cultural adaptation. Taking the students of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) as sojourners, the study examines the cultural adaptation challenges these students encountered and the coping strategies employed to overcome them. Kim’s integrative communication theory of cross-cultural adaptation is applied as a theoretical lens for this study. Thirteen international students of GB who studied in Chinese universities were recruited for in-depth interviews. The semi-structured interviews were conducted regarding the respondents’ intercultural adaptation experiences in China and their coping strategies. The data were transcribed and thematically analysed. Three main themes were extracted from the transcribed data; the first theme focuses on preferences in choosing Chinese universities. The second theme focuses on socio-cultural and psychological barriers in the adaptation process. The final theme concentrates on supporting mechanisms and coping strategies available to overcome the challenges. The findings elaborate these major themes in detail with theoretical and practical implications and recommendations for further research.
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